


Girl From the North Country

by deathwailart



Series: Dragon Knights [OLD] [6]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Elves, Gen, High Fantasy, Implied or Off-stage Dubcon, Knights - Freeform, Slavery, Teen Pregnancy, Unwanted Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-13
Updated: 2012-10-13
Packaged: 2017-11-16 05:45:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/536142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Title from Girl From the North Country by Bob Dylan<br/>World info <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/507072/chapters/892337">here</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Girl From the North Country

Jormsen, the last holdout of the humans when the elves and dwarves finally fought to subjugate the humans with their magic along with the dragons, the nymphs of the forests and rivers caught in the crossfire, sacrificing themselves rather than being killed. Stjarnacado's landscape was forever altered after the Purge. Jormsen up in the north of Stjarnacado, their first and oldest castle is now home to ruins, home to all the little things they have managed to reclaim save for their dragon allies. A land shapes a person. Tanis is cold and hard, ice and steel. On the outside, the face the world sees. Inside she is a collection of jagged edges that rub raw, dragon's heart sealed within her chest, arcane ritual the last remnant of their glorious traditions to make Dragon Knights. Tanis sees no beauty in the world. Her whole life has been hardship with no gentle encouragements or arms to hold her as reassurance is offered - love makes you soft, it makes you weak as their history clearly shows. Love made the old knights stay to defend those who did not know how to fight, crushed and defeated in the process.  
  
Not knowing how to fight is a luxury now. A luxury none can afford.  
  
Now they all know how to wield the magic that runs through them all to fend off what might attack (all save the elves, to attack the race that rules Stjarnacado is suicide and folly) and many know the blade. Tanis knows sword, axe, dagger, spear, hammer, shield, her magic as devastating at the weapons she wields, honed over long years of training to prove herself. Her reward? Yet more training, torture some might say, up in the Fangs, honing herself to a sharp edge and nothing more. There was never much softness in her to begin with but by the first year there was an acceptance of pain by the few plucked from all four corners of Stjarnacado.  
  
She has known the taste of disappointment all her life and this is her chance to carve out something that is hers. So little has belonged to her. Clothes were passed down, hems adjusted, stitches in rips or tears until it was truly threadbare, the dyes gone after far too many washes in the river. Her armour was old too, toys, books, weapons until she finally became a Dragon Knight. Even her body was no longer hers; beneath the armour, chainmail, steel, leather there are old marks that mar the skin where life grew, twin children she never named, passed on to someone who either chose to be a mother or who had no choice like her. They need to keep their numbers up and the young man she lay with was gentle enough, a blacksmith and perhaps her best friend in the whole village, his callused hands strong and gentle but he didn't have his body invaded the way she did, all so she could achieve her dreams. It still haunts her dreams at times when she remembers the squirming within her, body distorting physically with tears and moods she could never explain. She felt weak. Powerless. Years of training to be the very best only for motherhood - not even that, mothering wasn't even her task, she was closer to being some broodmare - to be thrust upon her. Children who will be raised to share attention and affection, having to struggle to show that they deserve opportunity.  
  
Perhaps it might not have been such an issue if she had not been the last of an old line, a thought that makes her laugh because what does royalty matter to humans now? Just a list of names, so and so birthed or sired by so and so. Their castles are ruins, their goods taken by elves or trampled underfoot, their dynasties once benevolent and glorious long since gone, crumbled into dust. Just a way to try to force her from one path when being a Dragon Knight was her right by blood. Now one of the two she birthed will have to forsake the destiny to carry on a line that will mean less with every passing year. Tanis knows that there will be no rebirth of the human empire, not when they scrabble to survive with elves taking them as slaves or killing them just because they can, because they won that damn war all those centuries ago driving humans to the very brink. It's why Tanis is packing her gear to march off to accompany some spoiled elven princess on an error because they'll kill or enslave Jormsen if she doesn't do as commanded by them.  
  
None of this is new but somehow there are still parts of her that can be ground down, moments where her stomach sinks even though no human has grown up believing that life will ever be fair. Hope tries to grow but it is a stunted, withered thing that will die all too soon should she even finish this errand without finding herself more firmly tied to an elven leash. Maybe that is why they want her, a Dragon Knight personal guard, status symbol and joke all in one. She sharpens her sword at her small camp en route to the royal city of Tishlen, blade glinting dangerously in the moonlight. Let them try to tame her, let them see what fire from the north can bring.


End file.
